Page 21 of Factory Thief

Ugh. It’s got the Dodgers logo emblazoned on the back. Maybe she’d rather be cold. Nah, I better put it on her. I get a moment where I feel like I’m attending to a cute kitten rather than a professional criminal who kept me handcuffed to the bed all night—and not in a good way.

I mean, maybe she’d have gotten better sleep if she’d climbed into the bed with me, all I’m thinking.

I wonder what’s going to happen after we get the flash drive. I assume she’ll turn me over to the Factory. Hell, maybe Victoria is right, and they really are just trying to help people. In that case, her handing me over to the Factory might be a blessing in disguise.

For a time, I lose myself in the rolling highway. The wrinkled ocean crawls along as we parallel it. The sunlight splashing off the rolling waves is nothing short of beautiful. I think about how nice it might be to take a drive like this with Victoria under different circumstances. Way different circumstances.

I’ve dated several women since high school, but haven’t had what I would call a serious relationship. I guess Victoria must be my type, because I can’t get my mind off her. There is something really appealing about a badass woman willing to throw down with a guy who outweighs her by a hundred pounds or more.

Not to mention she was like a freaking ninja with that jailbreak. I wonder how she arranged for the cell next door to have plumbing issues. Probably had something to do with her much-ballyhooed Factory. They had bribed, or extorted, at least one guard into helping them.

Not to mention that rather convenient prison riot. If not for the guards being lured to another part of the prison altogether, I don’t know if we’d have made it out at all.

I look down at my arm, where my cuts from going through the chain-link fence have scabbed over. She could have cut a bigger hole, but, then again, I guess she didn’t have time.

The further down the highway we go, the lighter the traffic becomes. For a time we have the road to ourselves but for the occasional semi. We roll along the coast, making excellent time even though I don’t dare speed. I drive about five miles under the limit just to be on the safe side.

Which makes it rather odd when a black truck remains fixed behind us for about ten miles. At first, I try to convince myself I’m just being paranoid. After all, if it were the highway patrol or the FBI, they’d pull us over, form a roadblock or a checkpoint. Something other than just following at a distance. Wouldn’t they?

Besides, it’s a freeway. Lots of people use it, and I doubt we’re the only ones headed to San Jose today.

When ten miles becomes twenty, I grow more concerned. When it becomes a hundred, I get downright scared.

I glance over at Victoria. She’s sleeping hard. Real hard. I don’t want to wake her up for nothing. Most likely this truck isn’t following us at all, and I’m just being paranoid.

But what if I’m not?

I need to figure out if they really are tailing us. I pull off at the next exit.

“Don’t follow us,” I mutter. “Don’t follow us. Don’t follow us…”

The truck’s turn signal flashes, and I curse under my breath.

“God damn it.”

Still, this is a busy exit. It means nothing in and of itself that they went the same way. I try to get a good look at the driver, but they stay far enough back that their window tint provides anonymity. All I can tell is there’s more than one person in the truck.

Damn. Unlike Sleeping Beauty in the seat next to me, I don’t have any specialized training. I’m a freaking data analyst, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know how to lose a tail, even if they are following us.

I decide to make sure. I take a number of turns, right, left, right, right. Always keeping in mind how to get back to the freeway so we don’t get lost, but with no particular destination the odds of them following me become staggeringly low.

Yet still they follow.

What should I do?

Fuck it. I’m not Dale Earnhardt, but I’m going to try and lose them. Unfortunately, the car doesn’t cooperate. I take a turn too hard and wind up going onto the sidewalk. I clip a couple of chairs at a café before dragging ass back onto the road.

Victoria awakens from all the jostling as we go up and back down the curb. She glances at me, instantly alert.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re being followed.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yeah,” I say as the truck falls in behind us once again. “I’m sure.”

VICTORIA

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